Penelope approached me last year with the genius idea of opening a retail store that featured artisan, hand-crafted extra virgin olive oils, and aged, flavor-infused balsamic vinegars. I helped her with her branding; developing a logo, marketing collateral, a website, product and packaging design, an e-commerce solution, and various other branding elements (like the posters you see on the walls, etc.).

I love these kinds of projects because you get to help shape every aspect of the business and really become a partner with your client. I feel like when Penelope succeeds, so do I, and that is a very rewarding experience.

Here’s a live example of the +1 button integrated into this blog post:

Go ahead! If you “like” and recommend this post, click the “1″ folder above.

Seriously, here’s why adding a Google’s +1 button to your site is important:

1. Google is the #1 search engine in the world and people trust them. When people recommend your content, their friends and contacts will also see it and it becomes like a personal recommendation. People trust their friends, so their acquaintances will be more inclined to click your link rather than a competitor. Combine these two trust factors and your have a win-win situation for all party’s involved.
2. It’s a new feature, so people will notice it more. Your listing will become more visible. +1 recommendations will stick out like sore thumb in the short-term. It’s important now, more than ever, to write great Title tags and META descriptions to entice users to click.
3. Will it help to improve your organic search rankings? Google will never tell. But my feeling is, when a user clicks your link, Google can tell if you thought that link was relevant (e.g. you didn’t hit the ‘back’ button immediately, how long you stayed on the page, you bookmarked it, etc.). This sends a signal to Google that you thought that the content was relevant. It may be more noticeable for personalized search rather than in the general index, but it will be counted as a ranking factor, both ways.
4. It’s pretty much like the “Like” button in Facebook. People are now familiar with that concept, and will be more likely to recommend you because of this familiarity. It’s like giving your stamp of approval or endorsement on a page or URL, just like on Facebook. You should start seeing better qualified traffic from Google.
5. Google is now counting “Social Signals” in their algorithm (So I guess that further clarifies item #3). At the PubCon conference I attended in 2010, Google made it crystal clear they were factoring in Twitter mentions and re-tweets and Facebook ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ as a positive signal of relevance.
6. It’s stupid simple to implement, Google will appreciate it, so why wouldn’t you do it?

UPDATE:

Apparently there is an issue with the +1 Button rendering in IE8. Go figure. Below are some screenshots of the results for those who have crappy browsers.

I will probably never bowl a 173 again in my life.

Pixelpunk Creative was the agency responsible for CaterTrax’s recent rebranding and marketing initiative, including designing and coding the new website, Internet marketing and SEO, logo redesign, custom WordPress theme/blog, business card and letterhead design, tradeshow banners, and the graphic design and production of all new printed marketing collateral.

So instead of telling you what *I* think of the site (obviously biased), I’ll let the actual judges of the competition do the talking:

“The Catertrax website employs a clean layout that marries functionality with a traditional “product information site” design. The menu and navigation are straightforward and quickly lead the visitor to additional information about the company’s products and toward the initial steps in the sales process.”

“The Catertrax team has also taken steps toward search engine optimization. This is evident in their placement on Google (ranked #4) for terms such as “catering software.”

“A simple and clean layout makes content easy to find and comprehend…A consistent color palette looks polished, without being too flashy…The website invites visitors to learn more details on many different topics and features, without being overwhelming.”

“The site also does an excellent job of using video to introduce the product – perhaps the best use of video of any of the sites I reviewed”

• Typically, by the time we know we’re in a recession it has been going on for several months.
• The average recession lasts around eight months.
• The lead time for effectiveness of any marketing campaign including online is 2-6 months. Last year we had a Google rep tell us that you cannot judge the effectiveness of PPC until it has been running at least six weeks. Of course he would not give details and it’s in their interest to encourage long tests, but I can see the logic.
• If you stop or cut back your marketing during a downtime you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. Let’s say I decide I’m in a recession and business is down so I need to economize. I cut back drastically on my marketing. Since I probably stalled on my decision while trying to figure out whether we really were in a recession let’s assume that four months of the actual recession have passed when I cut bait. Three months later things are looking up so I start ramping up again.

A month later the recession ends and business starts to swing upward but my marketing has two more months to regain a foothold. I lose a potential big burst of business optimism because my market needs to learn over again that I’m around to do business with.

Lesson: We are marketing now for sales later. Reacting to situations now in ways that hurt us later is bad strategy. You’d be better off increasing your marketing at that point when things seem to be at the bottom so you can have a head-start when the up cycle begins anew.

Joel’s blog, Joel On Software, is a must read even if you’re not a techie alhough it has its share of programming posts. He runs a successful and innovative company so this advice is from the trenches- or should I say from an advance across the field?

Focus on putting good, relevant keywords in your title and H1 tags (when appropriate, of course) and forget about keyword META tags. They are irrelevant. Worthless. They are yesterday’s news. They Keyword META tag is dead.